Spiral (Suzuki novel)

The events in the story occur 1 day after the events of the 1st book. It introduces Ando Mitsuo, a coroner still struggling with his son's death, being assigned to do the autopsy of his old classmate, Ryūji Takayama. He & his colleague, Miyashita, find a tumor in Ryūji's heart, which is believed to be his cause of death. Puzzled as the tumor appears similar to smallpox (which was eradicated in 1979), Ando completes the autopsy &, upon finding a newspaper poking through a suture, is reminded of Ryūji's cryptography hobby. Finding the newspaper numbers interesting, he decodes them & discovers that they spell "RING", perplexing Ando.

In the search for the message's meaning, Ando soon meets Ryūji's assistant & lover, Mai Takano. Mentioning a videotape that Ryūji watched before dying, Mai believes that it's connected to his death through a curse. Learning of Kazuyuki Asakawa, Ryūji's friend & the protagonist of Ring, Ando considers speaking to him, only to learn that Asakawa & his family were involved in a car accident. Finding that Asakawa is the sole survivor & catatonic, Ando investigates relevant evidence & learns that his wife & child were dead well before the car crashed & that a tape recorder & word processor were in the vehicle.

Trying to reach Mai, Ando finds her missing & investigates her seemingly abandoned condominium; he finds what he believes to be a copy of the supposedly cursed videotape, albeit almost entirely recorded over, & believes an unknown entity is hiding somewhere in the condo. Learning that Asakawa's tape deck & word processor went to his next of kin, Ando retrieves the word processor from his brother & copies the files.

Finding a document about the videotape, Ando reads that the curse spreads through a tape & can only be stopped by copying & sharing it with someone else; despite disputing the files as pseudoscientific, Ando & Miyashita continue reading into them, & discover that the Ring Virus started with the murder of psychic Sadako Yamamura. Additionally, Miyashita soon discovers that a virus connects all of the victims & comes in 2 forms: a ring-shaped virus which kills the host, & a broken version of the same virus (similar to a sperm cell) which is dormant.

1 week after Mai's disappearance, her corpse is found in the ventilation shaft of a barely used office building. Additionally, despite having given no physical indication that she was pregnant, Mai's corpse shows signs that she gave birth prior to her death. Upon visiting the crime scene, Ando meets a beautiful woman named Masako who introduces herself as Mai's older sister. After having sex with Masako, Ando later receives a fax containing information on Sadako from Miyashita, only to realize that Masako is identical to Sadako.

Believing that Masako is Sadako reborn, Ando receives a note from her explaining that Mai was infected with the 2nd "sperm" ring virus which targeted her womb; this allowed Sadako to conceive herself within Mai & control her, before birthing herself within a week & disposing of Mai's corpse. Also revealing that the Ring Virus can also spread through literary descriptions, Sadako has ensured that Asakawa's brother is able to publish a book on Kazuyuki's files, allowing the virus to spread internationally. She then concludes that Ando is infected with the dormant virus &, should he interfere in any way, she will activate it & kill him; conversely, in exchange for Ando's co-operation, Sadako will resurrect Ando's dead son.

Finally learning that Ryūji worked with Sadako to ensure her resurrection, Ando realizes that Ryūji deliberately influenced both himself & Mai. By supernaturally causing the paper code to appear to Ando & making Mai watch the tape when she was most fertile, Ryūji was the mastermind behind the plan, doing so to be spared & revived by Sadako. An epilogue shows Ando playing with his son, Takanori, whereupon Ryūji arrives & implies that he acted for the greater good.

A film of the same title was released in 1998 which was based on the book. It was poorly received and later another sequel to the 1998 Ring film was made, Ring 2. A 13-episode TV drama was broadcast in 1999 on Fuji Television. Elements of Spiral were adapted in the 2017 American film Rings.

• Ring
• Koji Suzuki
• Japanese horror

• SaruDama – Contains reviews of Spiral and other Suzuki novels.
• Vertical, Inc. – Publisher of English translations of the Ring novels.